MACDONALD, DETTWILER AND ASSOCIATES LTD., the Canadian subsidiary of Orbital Sciences Corp., filed a preliminary prospectus related to an initial public offering and secondary offering. The initial review process should take a few months. MDA's shares are slated to be listed in Canada. Orbital currently owns about 66% of the company, and Canadian institutions account for the other 33%. Orbital will continue to hold a majority stake in MDA after the deal.
The AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile scored a direct hit in the first of five operational assessment tests, according to Raytheon Co., developer of the heat-seeking missile. It said the weapon, launched by an F/A-18C in an April 21 test at the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Div., China Lake, Calif., struck a QF-4 target drone.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) is working on how to meet evolving requirements for defense mapping data, according to William Stein, the agency's senior scientist for advanced sensors. Stein told attendees at a conference of the American Society for Photogrammetry&Remote Sensing yesterday that the defense and intelligence community is seeking digital terrain elevation data with relative horizontal accuracies ranging from three meters to 0.5 meters and relative vertical accuracies of two meters down to 0.33 meters.
The House yesterday passed a bill giving permanent normal trade relations to China, a move that was strongly favored by many in the aerospace industry. The 237-197 vote for PNTR would end the 20-year practice of annually renewing China's trade status and would allow the U.S. to enjoy the increased market access that China agreed to as part of its negotiations to join the World Trade Organization.
The new Defense Trade Security Initiative (DTSI), touted as the "first major post-Cold War adjustment" to the U.S. export control system, was revealed to NATO allies at a meeting yesterday in Florence, Italy. Lord Robertson, Secretary General of NATO, characterized the move as "important" and of "great importance to the Alliance" in a statement after a briefing on the new initiative by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The House yesterday passed the fiscal year 2001 intelligence authorization bill after defeating an amendment by Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) to declassify the total amount spent on intelligence programs. The bill was approved by voice vote. The Roemer amendment lost by a 175-225 vote.
The House Appropriations VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee marked up a fiscal 2001 spending bill yesterday that would allocate $13.714 billion to NASA, an increase of $112.8 million over FY '00 but a cut of $321.7 million from the Clinton Administration's request for the agency.
Airbus CEO Noel Forgeard said yesterday that he has letters of intent for the A3XX super-jumbo airliner from four more customers who "will remain undisclosed for awhile," and that "at least two more are in the pipe." Airbus has already announced letters of intent from Emirates and Singapore Airlines.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Space Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., and Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va., have won three month, $110,000 study contracts for design work on NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST). A follow-on to the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory set for a controlled reentry early next month, GLAST is expected to be able to observe at least 10 times as many active galactic nuclei and stellar-mass black holes as previously possible. TRW, of Redondo Beach, Calif., also won one of the three-month study contracts (DAILY, May 22).
EDWARD C. STONE, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1991, will retire next year after he turns 65. A physicist who has taught at Caltech since 1964, Stone plans to return to the classroom after a search committee names his replacement.
The U.S. Air Force remains firmly in favor of the Joint Strike Fighter program despite reports to the contrary, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan said yesterday. Despite recent press reports that Air Force and Navy support for the JSF is weak due to other expensive priorities that include the F-22 and the F/A-18E/F, Ryan said the Air Force's commitment to the JSF is "firm" as long as the aircraft meets the capability and price requirements that were set for it.
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, HUNTSVILLE, will develop an Intelligent Synthesis Environment/Collaborative Engineering Environment (ISE/CEE) infrastructure user portal for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center under a sole source contract announced yesterday. The portal will give access to data and tools supported by the CEE infrastructure, as an enhancement to the "Virtual Research Center" UAH has been helping NASA Marshall develop.
ALCATEL SPACE has completed its work on the Envisat Payload Data Segment (PDS) it developed for the European Space Agency. The PDS will give Envisat users access to data generated by the satellite's users.
DRS Technologies, Parsippany, N.J., signed a definitive agreement to sell it magnetic tape head business to a private investor. Properties to be sold include units located in St. Croix Falls, Wis., and Razlog, Bulgaria. Mark S. Newman, chairman, president and CEO of DRS, said the move is intended to refocus resources on core areas.
Testers ran out of range time Monday at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., as they readied the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) for its first shoot-down of an in-flight target. They were slated to try again today. They "have to point and track first to get accurate aim," said a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala. "The beam was adequately directed at the designated aim point," a static target, "but then they ran out of range time," she said.
CORE SOFTWARE, McLean, Va., and GTT NetCorp, Tampa, Fla., have signed an agreement under which the Florida company will operate a ground receiving station in Puerto Rico to gather high resolution imagery data collected by West Indian Space's planned fleet of Israeli built remote sensing satellites (DAILY, Feb. 10, 25). Core manages ground receiving network for WIS, which said it expects to launch the first of at least eight satellites based on Israel's Ofeq reconnaissance spacecraft late this summer.
Crew members from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, including two astronauts and a cosmonaut scheduled to spend five months on the International Space Station next year, found the orbiting facility a little warm, but dry and free of mold when they entered it for the first time Monday night.
Alliant Techsystems reported record fiscal 2000 year-end results, turning in $6.36 earnings per share from continuing operations versus $5.52 in the prior year. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2000, EPS from continuing operations were $1.84, up 15.7% year-over-year.
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE has won the David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award for its Relay Satellite Team. The team delivered the last of a multiple satellite buy ahead of schedule and under budget. The new satellites, NRO said, will have eight times the capability of their predecessors. The team integrated commercial practices and new technologies to build the satellites faster, better and cheaper.
NASA plans to test its preparations to deorbit the 33,000-pound Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) on Sunday with a test burn of its on-board thrusters, followed by four operational burns next week designed to bring the big astronomical observatory down in the Pacific early on June 4, Eastern Daylight Time. A spokesperson for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which will control the deorbiting maneuver, said yesterday the test burn was rescheduled from the May 26 date originally announced (DAILY, May 22).
BOEING ROCKETDYNE has tested a combination of hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as a less toxic "green" storable propellant for the X-37 orbital testbed Boeing is developing for NASA. The company burned the mixture in its AR2-3 engine for a total of 385.5 seconds, confirming the engine can be used as a restartable and reusable upper stage engine without dangerous hypergolic propellants. Boeing has also delivered the X-40A test vehicle it built for the U.S.
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY engineers have joined forces with the British Columbia Forest Service in Canada to demonstrate how space assets can be used in fighting forest fires. ESA and the Canadian agency demonstrated Real Time Emergency Management via Satellite (REMSAT) this month near Squamish, B.C. The ESA sponsored project integrates telecommunications, Earth observation and navigation satellite services to aid forest fighters as they locate and fight forest fires. MacDonald Dettwiler, an Orbital Sciences Corp. subsidiary, held the contract for the REMSAT demonstration.
Elbit Systems Ltd. of Israel won a $66 million contract to upgrade F-5 aircraft for the Royal Thai Air Force over the next four years. The program covers 31 F-5 aircraft, additional equipment and maintenance and logistic support.
Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control, Dallas, Texas, is being awarded a $65,000,000 modification to a cost plus incentive fee contract (DAAH01-99-C-0062) for Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP-1) Patriot Advanced Capable (PAC-3). Work will be performed in various sites and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal years. This is a sole source contract initiated on May 19, 2000. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. is the contracting activity.
